Bernaard

Maybe it is only me or my hardware (a HP laptop named nc6320, with a Core2Duo T5600). I installed Mandriva 2007.1. The installation went like a charm, and I started to think that Mandriva might be thing for a rather new laptop. I used it in one day, set up Gnome and Gdm, to escape the horrors of Kde and the Mandriva style. When I was finished setting it all up, and I had a system which felt good, all went wrong. Suddenly, programs started without windows surrounding them. Login attempts ended in a nice white screen. The same horrible behaviour for all users. Now, let us see if Ubuntu will be more stable.

There are some issues when enabling remote desktop login (XDMCP) in CentOS 5. XDMCP is easy to configure through the gdmsetup utility (System > Administration > Login Screen). For some reason it turned out, that opening port 177 TCP and UDP in the firewall is not enough. In fact I had to turn the firewall off. I have no idea why…

I enabled the Xnest login, which is fancy since you login to a remote computer in a window. This is done by first enabling “New Login” in the System Tool part of Menu Layout (System > Preferences > More Preferences > Menu Layout). When this is enabled, I right-clicked “New Login” in the Menu Layout editor, and selected “Properties”. There I changed the command field from gdmflexiserver to gdmflexiserver -n. “New Login” now appears in the System Tools-menu.

The problem for me was that the nested login did not understand the presence of my Norwegian keyboard. The solution was to change the Xnest settings in /etc/gdm/custom.conf. This is simply done by adding the following line (as one line, of course) in the [daemon] part of custom.conf:

Xnest=/usr/bin/Xnest -audit 0 -name Xnest -geometry 800×600 -xkbmap /usr/share/xmodmap/xmodmap.no

To activate the changes, run:

gdmflexiserver –command=”UPDATE_CONFIG daemon/Xnest”

And my Norwegian keyboard works in Xnested login! Hooray! You might guess that -geometry 800×600 sets the size of the window.

No vil eg ikkje meir. Eg vil ikkje høyra meir på suset frå vifta i mellomtårnet mitt. Eg skal kasta blyskjermen i ei bod og få plass til rader med bøker i staden. Det stasjonære monsteret har ikkje lenger ein funksjon. Når eg testar eit av dei meiningsløse PHP-programma mine, kan eg like godt gjere det på ein berbar. Hardplatene kan eg kle i USB® og Firewire®-kabinett, om eg må ha meir plass.

Så kva kan vel vera meir naturleg enn å ta det store hoppet inn dei fire-og-seksti bitane? Og kvifor la tvikjerna venta? Det skal no bli spanande å sjå om Intel 950 GM-kortet kjem på plass med eit klikk, og om Broadcoms trådlause kort er støtta i Centos 5. Gudane veit kor trådlaust det blir! Ndis-wrapper og frosne økter. Nei, det skal gå greitt på eit vis, med dunkle, halvt ulovlege fil-lagre i yum.

Det blir no fint å installera CentOS igjen, med ein Intel Tvi2Kjerne T5600, og eit par gigabytar med vilkårleg-tilgang-minne. Så må eg nok kunne tvistarta XP og CENTOS. Eg gler meg som eit lite barn. Eg kan nok ikkje spele dei råe spela med Intel 950 GM-kortet, men eg kan spela litt gode retrospel. Det er ein plan.

I am nothing but a simple Linux user, mainly interested in the cool and calm atmosphere of a conservative and stable distribution. But “Sarge” was too conservative. It drove me crazy, and I never had the nerves to go for ‘testing’. I don’t like that word. Testing is not my business.

What I like is my USB-key to appear on my desktop without editing strange hal permission files. I like when both sound-cards simply works, my printer is setup in two minutes, and the network for some reason is running. Debian “Etch” does all that.

However, I am very fond of boot-splash screens, and have to go back to check if the kernel source is properly unpacked… And now it is compiling… This could be something to choose when installing the system? I’m not complaining, really. The boot-splash doesn’t mean a thing. It is just the aesthetic of it, all the text rolling over a black screen. Who reads it, really? Then again you do understand when a service makes the boot process slow.

A very good thing with “Etch” is its looks. It looks great! No fuzz. My mirror gives me 500–800 Kb/sec, and life is great. (And my patched kernel is still compiling on my AMD Sempron 2500+…)

If you don’t mind the absence of a boot-splash screen, give “Etch” a try! (I have to sleep, but will report from the battlefield continously.)